


half moon musings

by Areiton



Series: Find Me In the World [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek-centric, Getting Together, Grieving, Happy Derek Hale, Healthy Derek Hale, Introspection, M/M, POV Derek, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Woodworking as therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 05:33:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: When he’s got wood in his hands, under his tools, the scent of it fresh and clean in his nose--he can’t think. He can only be present in that moment, give his attention to that small piece of creation.





	half moon musings

There is a part of him--a big part--that wants to bolt. Wants to drop off the furniture and puzzlebox and climb right back into his truck and drive the four hundred miles back to Maine. Back to his tiny cabin and his pack that isn’t and the life he’s built that’s safe. 

He wants to so badly his bones ache with the urge to shift and his gums itch with, his control frayed. 

He wants to run, and he forces himself into the hotel he always stays at, because winter is closing in on them, and he needs to stock the cabin before he sequesters himself there, for months on end. 

While he follows Lily around Boston and hums agreement to everything she says the pack needs, he doesn't think. He can push it out of his mind and be present, be what his pack needs and it’s enough. 

But then. 

Then dinner is over, and she’s delighted in that bubbly way of hers that makes Derek smile quietly at her as she bounces away from him, and into her room, and he’s alone. 

Alone with his thoughts. 

Even now, after therapy and Braeden and the distance that only time can give, being alone with his thoughts for too long is rarely good. It’s part of the reason he started woodworking to begin with. When he’s got wood in his hands, under his tools, the scent of it fresh and clean in his nose--he can’t think. He can only be present in that moment, give his attention to that small piece of creation. 

Lily grins and calls it his zen and Eric watches him with haunted eyes when Derek emerges from his workshop, dusty with sawdust and tearstained. 

Even now, years later, he will come out of his work-trance holding a piece from his past and blink away tears he hadn’t realized were there. A tiny carved flower that reminds him of Erica. A wolf’s paw carved into a nightstand that would fit Laura’s wolf perfectly. A puzzle of interlocked wooden rings that are deceptively strong and unassuming that he stains the color of Boyd’s dark eyes. The shattered spiral staircase on a model lighthouse that he sends to Isaac without a word. 

They’re all there, in his work, in the furniture he sells and the things he creates, all these pieces of himself that fit into and make up the life he’s built away from the ashes of them. 

It’s easy to sell his pieces, when it’s to strangers. To let them hold fragments of his past and who he’s become, because they don’t know  _ him _ . They don’t know what inspired them, and how he wept creating them, how sometimes he still wakes aching to see his sister, to watch Erica laughing at Boyd, to call Isaac. 

They don’t know, but they still love the work, and he wants that. He wants the whole world to see the people he loved and lost and to love them too. 

His therapist said it’s a way of letting them live on. Derek doesn’t know how true that is, but it settles some of the hurt in his chest, thinking of them bringing comfort and happiness to strangers who never had the privilege of loving the wonderful family Derek had created and destroyed. 

But this--this is different. 

This is Stiles. 

This is  _ Stiles _ . 

Stiles, who always saw too deeply into him, and now, he has this puzzle that lays Derek bare, strips him down and spreads him open for Stiles and his brilliant mind to pick apart and evaluate. 

It’s a pulse pounding fear that tastes almost like exhilaration and a new chance, and hope. 

It’s terrifying and he is dizzy with anticipation. 

He leans against the window and watches wisps of cloud scuttling across the half-moon and lets anticipation buzz in his fingertips as his eyes gleam electric blue. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, y'all. I sat down and actually planned out what the rest of this series looks like. I know you're all waiting for the reunion and I can say (finally) that it's coming!  
> Enjoy and let me know what you think! And you can chat with me over on [Tumblr](http://areiton.tumblr.com). I like talking about Dylan's eyes and Hoechlin's everything and love new people. <3


End file.
